I dare you to come up with a single food conversation on this board wherein at least one person has not stepped up and said "Not me, I'm allergic /phobic /a freak with no taste buds /a chocolate bar once bit my sister."

This is very true.

Sad, but true.

There's bad in chocolate??!?

Nuts in chocolate isn't great. It's only so-so. But, I can suck the chocolate off of the nuts.

Back to Lyra Jane...

You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I think their views on sexual subjects are indefensible, but I have a tremendous amount of respect for some of the church's work on poverty, human rights and peace issues. They don't believe respecting life stops after the baby is born, as our president seems to, and I appreciate the consistency. Without John Pauk II's support for the Solidarity movement in Poland, we might still have a USSR.

My honest opinion, with a fair amount of knowledge of the history of the Catholic Church, is that it has done far more damage than good. Aside from its extremely problematic notions about sex (which I think contributed greatly to the pedophile priest scandal), it has consistently valued its own power and influence over doing good. That was true during the Holocaust. That has been true as it shuffled predatory priests around from parish to parish. That was true all through European history. Then you throw in things like...burning the Huegenots and such, or the vast corruption that inspired the reformation and it just hasn't been a good institution. And it doesn't learn much either. The Magdalene Sisters were still going into the late seventies?

(And then there's Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement -- I had a sort of mentor in college who was involved with a similar group, and I saw how much his faith backed his work for some very liberal causes -- he co-founded a punk activist group that's lasted almost 20 years, among other things.)

I've had this discussion many times with JZ, because her parish is that strain of Catholicism. In short, they are an extreme left wing part of the Catholic Church, not that numerous, an embarassment to Rome and forever skirting heresy or disobedience. Highly anomalous - not much of what constitutes the vast majority of Catholics. I'm always reminded of the French myth and romance of The Resistance. Which was a very tiny part of the population. For the most part, the French collaborated - that's not how they like to remember themselves. But it's truer.

I think sex is like food -- a lot of the time it is value-neutral.

Dude!

There's bad in chocolate??!?

Hershey's. Also the kind that's in cheap Easter bunnies.

"Not me, I'm allergic /phobic /a freak with no taste buds /a chocolate bar once bit my sister."

Oohhh!! Case in point, I lost my sense of taste for about 8 weeks after radiation. Chocolate is NAS-TEE when you can't taste it. It's like eating lard.

not all sex *is* good

You can say that again. BTDT.

a chocolate bar once bit my sister

Great. I'm going to be saying this all week now.

I think it is completely indefensible organization - utterly morally bankrupt.

You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I think their views on sexual subjects are indefensible, but I have a tremendous amount of respect for some of the church's work on poverty, human rights and peace issues.

I expect that Wolfram & Hart sponsored some Little League teams and donated to food banks when they could get a good tax break, but they would have to be judged as evil on balance.

If we look across the last 2000 years, the Roman Catholic church has been chiefly concerned with its own preservation, and it has been willing to participate in any form of oppression or immorality to that end. In general, Catholics have been reluctant to confront the history of their church, and their failure to do this has contributed to the church's failure to engage in real reform. Even today, the church's work to discourage birth control in an overpopulated world is one of the most destructive and immoral influences on the planet.

That doesn't make Catholics bad. But it certainly makes their general silence about church teachings mystifying to me. I mean, are the rituals so seductive that they compel people to send money to an organization that discourages condom use? I don't get it. There are other groups that do good work on povery, human rights, and peace issues.

Oohhh!! Case in point, I lost my sense of taste for about 8 weeks after radiation. Chocolate is NAS-TEE when you can't taste it. It's like eating lard.

I'm going to have to hold the chocolate blameless in this instance, and focus my disapproval on the radiation.

Even today, the church's work to discourage birth control in an overpopulated world is one of the most destructive and immoral influences on the planet.

Not to mention their work to discourage the use of condoms, which has contributed to the spread of AIDS.

But, I can suck the chocolate off of the nuts.

Resisting the urge to tie this back into the sex conversation.